August 9, 2007

"Save the cheerleader," they said. "Save the world."

But I have no time to save myself, let alone any cheerleaders, and therefore resigned myself to the fact that I would inevitably miss at least three quarters of the episodes of That Thing Everyone's Talking About.

Then, however, a "colleague" at work, a certain photographer who goes by the name of Dave Gennard, announces that he has the whole lot on disk, geniusly downsurfed from the interhoop.

So, at the weekend, licking invisible wounds and curling up in an imaginary comfort blanket, I pressed "play".

And I watched so many episodes that I actually began to think I could fly, liquefy objects, become President of the United States, and get free money out of ATMs. (Yes, I know, the last one really is ridiculous.)

Last night, I nestled down to watch the last five.

And after the penultimate show, my mate and I cracked a bottle of red - despite it being after 2am - and prepared, in a comfortable, wined up way, for The Answers To All Our Questions.

Provided, in no small measure, by Mr Gennard, our friend with the interhoop magic.

So.

After nine hundred and twenty four minutes of marathon TV viewing, I found that Mr Gennard - cheeky japester that he is - had decided to leave off the last sodding episode of the twenty-sodding-three sodding-episode series.

This is Mr Gennard, posing in a way - after his cheeky, cheeky jape - that is remarkably prophetic to what now, if I have anything to do with it, he'll be doing for the next twenty years:

gennard

And I have a new mantra, friends.

Remember it well.

"Kill the photographer. Kill the world."